Seize The Day!

Today started at 4:45 AM with a knock at the door. Marco, my best (and only) friend from Chile was there holding his towel.

Yesterday, Marco and I had both agreed that we needed to go swimming in our pool, but I don't think that he realized that I was serious when I told him that I would jump in the pool with him at 5AM the next day.

At this point you are probably thinking, "Why, Karen?" Why bother to get up in the dark and swim in a freezing cold pool with a Chilean man?

Well, why not? The pool's there--why not go swim in it? Will this same opportunity ever arise again?

In a nutshell, this has been my philosophy on life, these days. My time in Africa is quickly coming to a close, and I'm beginning to feel a little pressured. I want to make the most of the time I have left.

On one hand, I'm ready to be done with fieldwork here. Hands just isn't my thing, and the days can be brutally long when we aren't seeing patients. Last week, I found a copy of "The Arthritis Handbook" and read it to keep myself occupied in the afternoons. But, on the flip side, I love living here. I could easily stay in Cape Town for another few months or year... I'm still awed by the beauty of this place, everything is so magnificent. This afternoon, Sarah and I drove to Camps Bay and sat on the beach and ate lunch. It was incredible--the mountains on one side, the ocean on the other, incredibly beautiful people walking around everywhere. I would have been content to just sit and take it all in until the sun went down.

But the sun hasn't gone down on our time in Africa, just yet...